A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Sixteen: Part Two

I hurried down the hallway, letting my hands rapidly shifted back and forth by my sides.

“I’m going home now!” I called in a wobbly, shaky voice. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow!”

As soon as I announced these words, Mikan materialized before me with a curious expression loomed over her face.

“You’re going home?” Mikan questioned, running her fingers in attempt to detangle her caramel shaded hair. “Do you need a ride?”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure? I heard you went down the beltway a few nights ago in order to get here. You can’t imagine the guilt I felt letting you go home alone. I should have offered you a ride that night.”

“It’s okay.” I was aware of how Mikan twitched when she felt guilty. She was always the sort of confident, exuberant person that randomly ran through the streets shoving flyers or samples at innocent bystanders and dashing away without any thought of the injury she might have caused. She never gave those things a thought because she didn’t know anything about them existing or occurring.

But I knew that when she did witness something that she had to be guilty about, she had to fix it.

“I hate having a conscience, you know,” Mikan shook her hair loose, letting her mild curls bounce against her shoulders. “Wouldn’t life be easier if we didn’t have one?”

“It’d be easier for you,” I corrected, nodding in understanding in what she meant. “But it’d be more trouble for others.”

“Touché, kiddo.”

I knew exactly what her words meant.

If Keita had no conscience, he wouldn’t bother to give me a ride home that night. But since he did seem to have a conscience, he worried about my safety and drove all the way out to the café.

And even if he didn’t give me a ride home that night, since he would have still had that conscience of his, he would have worried about my safety anyway, clearly against my will.

Having someone you know have a conscience towards you was definitely more complicated.

But if Keita had no conscience, he wouldn’t even have bothered to offer to pay back that debt to me.

If I didn’t have a conscience, I wouldn’t have dived into the street that day to save him, and he wouldn’t be alive to not have a conscience.

“So, who’s your ride home?” Mikan still had that bright hint of curiosity that filled her expression.

My eyes gradually narrowed as I sharply pronounced, “Keita.”

“Oh, I thought he had come here tonight.” Mikan peered over her shoulder and craned her neck down the hallway. “Sora kept freaking out about this—“ Mikan threw air-quotes with her fingers. “—‘really, really hot dude with blonde hair and purple eyes’. That sounds a lot like Hanabusa-kun, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” I answered, recognizing the fact that Keita’s eye color must be really rare.

“Do you think Sora fell for him?” Mikan rolled her eyes as she turned her head back towards me.

“No, she’s just obsessed with hot guys.”

“Okay,” Mikan began to repeatedly ruffle her hair with her fingers. I noticed that she was no longer wearing the black uniform that she had on before.

Instead, she had on the recognizable Orange Café uniform of a bright, orange colored shirt and dress pants. I noticed that she didn’t have her apron tied around her waist, but I was aware that she hardly needed to. The restaurant was scheduled to close in just another hour.